Jodie Foster later said that with this movie began the lowest point of her career, as she turned down worthy roles in Splash (1984), The Terminator (1984) and The Breakfast Club (1985). Her career wouldn't recover until Kim Basinger turned down the role of Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and finally the part once assigned to Basinger was won by Foster, for which she won her first Academy Award.
The exteriors of The Hotel New Hampshire was portrayed by an actual Canadian hotel, the Hotel Tadoussac in Tadoussac, Quebec.
Early in preproduction, the rock band Queen was asked to record some songs for the movie. They completed at least one song for the soundtrack, "Keep Passing The Open Windows," but the collaboration fell through. The finished film saw no Queen contribution, but that same year their album "The Works" (1984) did feature this song.
While doing press in 1982 in London promoting Taps (1981), actor Timothy Hutton told the interviewer that his next film would be a comedy: "The Hotel New Hampshire". Hutton, however, does not appear in The Hotel New Hampshire (1984).